DUDRA BUTLER: King's 'dream' speech almost didn't happen

AP Photo/File Martin Luther King Jr. addresses marchers during his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.

SAN ANGELO, Texas - In the current issue of Time magazine, historian Jon Meacham refers to Martin Luther King Jr. as the “Architect of the 21st Century” and a “Founding Father” of this country. This is an assessment that cannot be disputed.

As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the significance of the role that King played in the march with his “I Have a Dream” speech cannot be overstated, nor the role that he had played leading up to that day, Aug. 28, 1963.

The issue references “One Man. One March. One Speech. One Dream,” with several people giving different accounts of the “man.” Meacham says that, with a single phrase, King joined Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln in the ranks of men who’ve shaped modern America.

Right before his moment in time, Meacham writes, “It was not going well, or at least not as well as Martin Luther King Jr. had hoped. The afternoon had been long: the crowds massed before the Lincoln Memorial were ready for some rhetorical adrenaline, some true poetry. King’s task now was to lift his speech from the ordinary to the historic, from the mundane to the sacred.

“... King was struggling with the text that had been drafted by too many hands the night before,” Meacham writes. “One sentence he was about to deliver was particularly awkward: ‘And so today, let us go back to our communities as members of the international association for the advancement of creative dissatisfaction.’”

Meacham writes that King “was on the verge of letting the hour pass him by,” and then “there was the sound of a woman’s voice. Mahalia Jackson spoke up. ‘Tell ’em about the dream, Martin,’” the famed gospel singer said.

“At Jackson’s remark, the preacher left his rather uninspired text — a departure that put him on a path to speaking words of American scripture, words as essential to the nation’s destiny in their way as those of Abraham Lincoln, before whose memorial King stood, and those of Thomas Jefferson, whose monument lay to the preacher’s right, toward the Potomac.”

Most of us, adult and young alike, know the text of “I have a Dream.” Here is one of the best known excerpts:

“And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”

Even President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which became law on Jan. 1, 1863, 100 years before the March on Washington, failed in part to improve the lives of people of color.

The emancipation was meant to address the question of how blacks fit into American society by officially declaring the slaves in the Confederacy free. People of color remained free in name only. For African-Americans, equality, freedom and human dignity were ideals that were elusive.

It wasn’t until 1865, after the Civil War and much bloodshed, and the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, that African-Americans gained their freedom. However, freedom was not the same as equality.

This is what the March on Washington was seeking. Blacks were tired of public places with signs that read “For Whites Only” or “For Colored Only.” They were tired of being attacked by police with water hoses, being hurled against buildings, being spat on, and being jailed for speaking up. They were just plain tired.

King and other civil rights leaders chose many peaceful demonstrations, marches, boycotts and sit-ins to turn the tide of segregation. They were demanding equality in jobs, equality in freedom, equality in education, equality in housing etc. and an end to separate but not equal.

Even after the success of the march and a growing recognition that something had to be done, there was still resistance. President John F. Kennedy, who supported change, was assassinated in November 1963. And who could forget the church bombing that killed four little black girls one Sunday morning only four months later.

Then in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, a milestone in the struggle for equality. That year King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And as the positives continued, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ensuring that all black citizens could exercise their right to vote in local, state and national elections.

I hope this part of our history is never forgotten. And let us not forget the dream that laid the groundwork for progress, for its significance was and is paramount.